UX/Market Researcher

A major financial institution is seeking a Senior or Principal-level researcher to lead a competitive benchmarking initiative for its credit card business. Ahead of next fiscal year's planning, the team needs a clearer view of how their offering compares to best-in-class competitors, and this role will build the scorecard to close that gap: a repeatable, trackable framework for rating features against the competitive landscape.

The engagement blends qualitative and quantitative research, with a mix weighted toward market research over usability. A research plan is already in place, so the researcher will be expected to hit the ground running rather than build from scratch.

• Lead qualitative research through one-on-one interviews to inform the benchmarking framework


• Design, program, and field a large-scale quantitative survey to validate and expand on those findings


• Build a competitive scorecard that maps credit card features (rewards, fraud protection, mobile app capabilities, and similar) against competitors and rates current performance against each


• Structure the scorecard as a repeatable, year-over-year tracking tool rather than a one-time report


• Deliver findings against key project milestones, culminating in refined results and stakeholder support through roadmap planning


• Present research findings directly to stakeholders and support their use in roadmap decision-making


• Own the full research lifecycle for this engagement: study design, fieldwork, analysis, and synthesis


• Consultancy background with strong quantitative research skills


• Experience building a competitive benchmarking framework or scorecard, in any industry


• Blended UX research and market research background


• Credit card-specific experience is a nice-to-have, not a requirement

• Senior or Principal-level researcher who can operate independently from day one, with no ramp-up period built into the engagement


• Hands-on experience personally building and fielding surveys in Qualtrics or similar tools, not just reviewing results built by others


• Demonstrated experience running large-scale quantitative research, including design, fielding, and analysis


• Experience running high-volume one-on-one qualitative interviews and synthesizing consistent themes across them


• Background in banking or financial services, ideally supporting a product or roadmap planning process


• Comfortable presenting research findings directly to business stakeholders